


where you go, i'm going

by percabetter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Depression, Short, it's a lil heavy but dw! he gets very comforted, not really a romance fic just tagged like that xx, this gets so gd lovey and gushy i promise, tw: attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:27:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28960209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/percabetter/pseuds/percabetter
Summary: "Remus hadn’t thought, when he’d left the common room that night, that he’d end up here of all places. There had been just a few too many voices, and he’d wanted to wander the castle a bit until he could get his head back on straight. They knew he got overwhelmed, and they knew he’d be fine. But now, he was here. His feet on the tower stairs, one by one. Taking him up, up, up until he could feel the night chill hanging in the air. The scuffed toes of his worn-in sneakers hung over the stone edge. He wondered if it would be a long way down...'Oh, god- Moony?' "or where Sirius finds Remus on the edge of the Astronomy tower, and Remus learns just how many people care about him.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 101





	where you go, i'm going

**Author's Note:**

> hey gamers xx i just wanted to put in a quick note about the contents of this fic. again, just one more time, tw for attempted suicide/depression! and yes i DID write this instead of going to therapy lmao oops but i hope u enjoy regardless :D

Remus usually loved the astronomy tower at night. The memories of midnight classes and nights spent sneaking out with his friends flashed across his mind as he stepped across the cobblestones. Watching planets pass overhead, seeing shooting stars shimmer through the sky, looking out over miles of grounds.

Tonight, though, it felt different. The cold wind, whistling through his hair. The stars shining down, watching every step he took. The quiet of a schoolroom, normally bustling, now eerily silent. No, he decided, he didn’t like this place at all.

That didn’t stop him from taking a step closer to the edge.

Remus hadn’t thought, when he’d left the common room that night, that he’d end up here of all places. There had been just a few too many voices, and he’d wanted to wander the castle a bit until he could get his head back on straight. They knew he got overwhelmed, and they knew he’d be fine.

And he had been fine. As soon as he’d stepped out of the common room, he remembered, he felt like he could breathe again. His footsteps echoed off the high ceilings as he wandered aimlessly through back hallways. He hadn’t been sure where he was exactly, but it didn’t matter: Filch was gone tonight, anyways. It had been the perfect night. But at some point, he’d been walking past the stairwell, and that nasty little part of his brain had cleared its throat.

God, Remus hated this. The battle, the endless back-and-forth. In these moments, when this urge came up from the deep, he felt like he was under Imperio, like he was a puppet, a car with broken brakes. Where no matter how far he turned the wheel to the right, he ended up taking the left.

A hand in the fire, his potions knife on his wrist. _Why not?_ whispered the urge. _You really think you’re better than this, don’t you. Tell me. Are you really going to stop me?_ Sectumsempra, just to see. And now, he was here. His feet on the tower stairs, one by one. Taking him up, up, up until he could feel the night chill hanging in the air.

He could go back to the dorm. It hadn’t been too long, after all. Mary and Peter were probably still playing chess. Marlene, no doubt, was asking James about the Quiddich practice she had missed. He wondered if Lily was still working on that charms problem. Yeah, he could still go back down. No one would ask — they wouldn’t notice he was missing for hours yet.

And maybe that was part of the reason he didn’t.   
They all had things to do, people to see. He wasn’t their whole world the way they were his. They weren’t just working to get through; they had goals, ambitions, people to meet and places to go. Remus had never been able to picture his future. Whenever he tried — and he’d tried — he always got stuck at age twenty-seven. Living alone in a cold apartment, maybe with faceless lovers passing through every now and then. Never wrinkles. No grey hairs. He’d never been able to think of a reason to get old.

He took another step closer. 

Maybe he had been too quick to judge the tower. The stars looked beautiful, like painted jewels on the canvas of the night sky. The half-moon shone down, cold as ever. He had gotten used to the wind by now; the chilly air was almost comforting, a reason to rub his hands together and stop them from shaking. That’s all the shaking was, after all. He wasn’t scared of anything. He was just there for the view.

Remus took two more steps, and suddenly, the edge of the tower was at his feet. The Hogwarts grounds sprawled before him, going as far as he could see. The Forbidden Forest was as threatening as it had been when he saw it for the first time, way back in first year. It still loomed, dark and dangerous, but the longer Remus stared at it, the more the illusion seemed to fall. It was just a bunch of trees, after all. The magic, the legends surrounding it came from its secrecy. Is that what he was like underneath it all, he wondered.   
An orphaned werewolf, wrapped in just enough secrets to make people stick around for a few years and find out what was under the paper.

The scuffed toes of his worn-in sneakers hung over the stone edge.

He wondered if it would be a long way down.

The stars still shone down, but their light seemed harsher now. It was a dare: to follow through, to do what that part of his brain had been telling him to since he was thirteen years old. The wind blew again, harder this time, and Remus moved with it, just a fraction. But it was enough to shift his weight, and his hands scrabbled on the wall now almost behind him to find some grip, something to pull him back. After a second of blind panic, he ended up with his back to the wall, half of one foot still hanging in the air.

Remus huffed out a shaky breath and, against his better judgment, he looked back over the edge. He could see, now, the way down.

That answered his question from before. He’d be dead on impact.

_Did he want to jump?_

He’d thought about it a lot. The idea of s- his mind refused the word. _The idea_ , he resolved to call it, wasn’t new at all. On the contrary: it was too familiar. On good nights, he’d fall asleep before he could get far enough to plan anything. On bad nights, he’d stare up at the canopy for what felt like hours, wondering what it would feel like. Would he be able to feel his heart stop beating? Feel the blood halt in his veins? Or would his throat closing up be the last thing he felt? If he was really honest with himself, death was never not on his mind — he’d been a danger since he was five. He’d always known it would have to end somewhere.

It had been worse recently, though. If he was in a bad mood one day, and he found himself alone, he no longer felt like he could trust himself and- _shit_. He really, _really_ didn’t want to think about that. But the thought echoed in the darkest depths of his head. He almost wished he could stop — scratch that, he _definitely_ wished he could stop — but, ultimately, wasn’t it him who was thinking it in the first place? And yes, he knew that sometimes the voice in his head took over — but was tonight really the night? _Was this really where it would end?_

He’d taken the steps up to the tower, after all. And he felt like he didn’t know that, if that same nasty voice told him now, where he was standing on the ledge, just to lean to the side a bit, would he be able to say-

“Oh, god- Moony?”

Remus’s stomach dropped off the edge of the tower.

It wasn’t surprise in Sirius’s voice. Remus almost wished there was, but despite the turn of his voice, there was no question in it. No panic, no frenzy in the way he spoke. The words were low, dark. Haunted.

Remus’s head whipped around, and god- he might as well throw himself off now, because he was never going to be able to forget the look that Sirius was giving him. Frozen in the doorway, eyes wide, mouth open, but it was the softness running through his face that rattled Remus. 

Sirius was all hard lines. He always had been, even when he was vulnerable. He played hard, he partied hard, he grieved hard. All sly smiles and sharp anger. Now, though, there was a curve to his cheek and an openness to the fear behind his eyes. A weakness in the slack set of his jaw, and- _fuck_ , Remus had found himself somewhere he’d never known he never wanted to be.

“Um, it’s not- I mean, I’m not- I-” Remus’s hand had, at some point, flown out to shake between the two of them, reaching out in a gesture that was somewhere between reassuring and defensive; he wasn’t sure which. “I mean-”

He had nothing to say for himself, and they both knew it.

Sirius looked like he might be sick. His eyes were flicking back and forth between Remus and the edge; it wasn’t very far for them to move. He blinked once, twice, three times, swallowed, shook his head as if to clear something away. When their eyes met again, Sirius’s were shining. That, Remus decided, was utterly beyond what he could deal with at the moment. He jerked his gaze back to his shoes, still halfway off the edge. Sirius’s voice startled him, hoarse as he spoke again.

“Were you-”

“No-” Remus didn’t shout, but the abruptness of his tone was close enough for the other boy. He could see Sirius’s shadow, cast across the stone floor, shrink back against the anger in his voice, and he forces himself to take a breath. “No, of couse not. I was just, um…” he trailed off because, well. They both knew he didn’t have an excuse.

In the silence that followed, Remus could almost hear Sirius’s heartbeat racing above the whistle of the wind. He could hear his breathing, too, for real this time — a rapid, jerking in-out, in-out that made him start to panic, too. He didn’t move, and neither did his best friend, and Remus didn’t know what to do, so he just-

“I- I think I’ve always wondered what it would be like to. You know.”

The voice coming out of his mouth surprised him almost as much as it did Sirius. He jerked his head towards the empty space next to him, the still-picturesque grounds seeming to mock him as he spoke. His eyes were still glued to the stones beneath his feet. Across the tower, he could hear Sirius’s breath catch in his throat and the sound of him taking a step forwards. 

“Like, do you think it would hurt? Would you feel your bones as they cracked?” He shrugged, a small up-and-down as he tried to calm himself down. “Or would you- um, would you be gone.” His jaw set, almost on reflex, as he forced himself to continue. “Gone before you could feel anything?” He heard Sirius suck in a breath, and Remus turned his head away, closing his eyes to the wind still whispering across his cheeks.

Remus could have thrown his heart off the tower to join his stomach on the ground below. He would’ve done anything if it would mean that he could go back to twenty minutes ago, if it meant that no one would ever know. But god, how could he go back now? He already knew that Sirius would never see him the same way again. He could feel the thought push forwards; the start of a spiral.

Then he’d tell the others, and they’d tell everyone, and then- well, they wouldn’t look in his eyes again, would they? He wouldn’t be their friend, he wouldn’t be anything to anyone, not anymore, they’d all just see him as-.

Remus tried to stop this train of thought, but the thought kept on, gaining traction as it picked up worries. His friends’ faces swam in his head, laughing.

_Fragile. Breakable. Not worth the effort to stop. “Ope, Moony’s out. Five sickles says he offs himself while he’s gone.”_

They wouldn’t. They _couldn’t_. Not his friends who, when he got detention for sleeping in class, poured out their inkwells so they could come with him. 

His friends, who figured out the Animagus spell for him. Peter, who stole chocolate from the kitchens after the full moon. James, who taught him what a bear hug felt like. Sirius…

Sirius, who was still standing two meters away from the edge that Remus’s foot was still half-hanging off. Sirius, whose voice was thick when he croaked, “Moony…” and Remus suddenly realized he couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. Even if he could come down, if the voice in the back of his head would let him turn around, he didn’t want to think about how Sirius’s face looked in this moment.

Not that he knew. He still couldn’t make himself look up and see.

“Moony, I-”

“Promise not to worry about me, okay? I’m fine.”

In the silence, the wind whistled through the tower window. Remus could feel his hair brush across his forehead, swept towards the grounds like it wanted to take him with it. It had to be whipping Sirius’s long hair across his eyes, but the shadow on the ground didn’t raise a hand to brush it away. It didn’t respond to Remus’s question, either. Five seconds passed, then twenty. Remus could hear a strange sound, a hiccup of breath, a stilted cough and sniffle from his best friend. Slowly, hesitantly, fearing what he would find more than he feared the ground below the toes of his shoes, he raised his eyes. 

Remus had seen Sirius cry exactly twice. The first was when they were eleven, their first morning at Hogwarts. The sun was shining, the students were chattering about their first classes of the year, and the shrill shriek of Walburga Black’s Howler calling her son a “Mudblood-loving son-of-a-bitch Gryffindor” cut through the Great Hall like a knife. Sirius had run out, tears running down his face onto the damned red-and-gold tie, and James had followed him out, flipping off the Slytherins as he went. Both of them were late to their first-ever Transfiguration class, but when they finally arrived, laughing their heads off, it was like nothing had ever happened.

The second time was when his piece-of-shit Slytherin brother had almost killed James. The pureblooded clique had sent a jinx at Lily and Mary on the way to Charms, they dodged, and James rolled up his sleeves — a normal Tuesday afternoon. But it had escalated, and fast. James dropped his wand and punched little Reggie in the face and, in retaliation, Regulus had pointed his wand at James’s heart and got to _Ava-_ before his voice stopped working, thanks to Remus’s _Silencio_. Both of them had had to hold Sirius back, hands clawing in front of him and swearing like Moody, so he didn’t strangle the whole bunch with his bare hands. By the time they’d got around the corner, the cursing had turned to sobs — dry, heavy sobs as he clung to his best friends. They’d never made it to Charms.

So Remus had known, in theory, that Sirius could cry. He was capable of it. But he’d never thought he’d see it because of him, never thought he’d be responsible for tears streaming down the face of the infallible Sirius Black. He’d never thought he’d had the power, honestly.

But now twin streams of tears glistened in the moonlight. His eyes shone brightly, and in them, Remus could see Sirius’s mind working, could see him putting together every past joke about wanting to die, every early night, every “I’m fine” that everyone had taken as the truth. His mouth looked as though it had a mind of its own, opening as if to speak, then closing and pursing his lips over and over again. The tears gathered at his chin, meeting at the dimple in the middle and running as one stream across his bobbing Adam’s apple as he swallowed the lump in his throat. Remus had the sudden strange urge to comfort him, to throw his arms around him and tell him that everything would be alright. But he held it down and kept his eyes firmly fixed on Sirius’s tie as his best friend spoke, voice slow to come out.

“You know I can’t do that.”

The only thought in Remus’s head was that Sirius _wasn’t listening_. He’d be fine. Remus _knew_ he’d be fine. He’d been fine his whole life.  
 _You’ve been so fine_ , the voice said, _that you’re here now. Is that fine enough for you?_

It didn’t matter, because either way, Remus _needed_ Sirius to promise. He needed Sirius to say that he wouldn’t worry, he wouldn’t tell the others, because he needed them, and Sirius, to stay with him. That was all that mattered. If he jumped — _when he jumped_ , snickered the voice — he needed them to remember him as they had known him. Even if it didn’t come to that. Especially if it did. Sirius couldn’t worry about him, because Sirius never worried about him. No one did. 

He was the counselor, the comforter, the giver of advice. Not the one who cried in the chair because they were just so sad about their sorry little life. “Remus, I-” Remus finally met Sirius’s eyes, shining wet meeting chillingly dry.

“Promise.” Sirius’s jaw grasped at its usual angular set, tried its hardest, before he lost the battle and lowered his gaze. Remus watched his friend’s shoulders rise, then fall as he dropped his head, long black hair covering the emotion in his eyes.

Remus dropped his head back against the stone wall. The wind suddenly felt even colder. A low laugh bubbled up in his chest, under his tan sweater-armor, but there was no mirth behind it. He shook his head, less because he wanted to than out of pure frustration, and looked away from Sirius and his stilting breaths out over the grounds. The half-moon shone across the lake, ripples distorting the shape in a way that reminded him too much of the tears over Sirius’s cheekbones. He looked up instead, searching for something, anything that would keep him from having to continue this. But nothing dove down from the clouds, and there were so many separate feelings coiled inside him that he couldn’t name even one. The half-laugh came again, unwanted.

“I’m-” Remus’s voice caught in his throat. “I’m fine, I’m telling you, it’s just- I-”

He didn’t know what to say. What was there to say? He couldn’t explain it, not really. Not that he didn’t trust Sirius, because of course he did. 

Sirius had seen him through late nights and early mornings, through full moons and Potions detentions. Through everything.

No, he trusted him, he just didn’t want to feel so very...seen. Like he was turning his brain inside out and dumping the lost receipts and loose change in Sirius’s hands for him to deal with. Like he was making it Sirius’s problem. 

After all, it wasn’t his fault that Remus had turned out to be a suicidal werewolf, he’d just gotten into the wrong train car on the way to Hogwarts and ended up with him.  
He thought about Sirius’s face when he’d read the letter kicking him out of his childhood home. The angles of his cheekbones growing sharper as his jaw clenched, the heartbreak in his eyes masked by the too-long hair grown out to spite his mother. 

It had worked all too well.

No, he couldn’t tell Sirius.

But then he thought about those same eyes, moments before, overflowing.

_If nothing else, he deserves an explanation why someone else would leave him._ So Remus swallowed the lump in his throat.

“It’s just that sometimes I- I don’t- it’s like-”

It seemed that deciding to say it didn’t make it any easier to say. Remus’s eyes dropped to the ground yet again. He followed the cracks in the stone, trying to find the words as Sirius’s shadow shifted in fearful anticipation.

“It’s like, like everything- everything just fucking sucks, all the time. I don’t know.” 

He shrugged, trying to make it seem careless. It wasn’t. “Nothing ever really makes me as happy as I think it will, as it used to, as it’s _supposed_ to, I just, I-” he felt a familiar tug in the back of his throat. “Shit.” He took a deep breath, clenched his jaw, but against his wishes, water began to gather in his eyes.

“I just- stay busy, keep myself busy until the day’s over, every single fucking day, and I just-” One tear fell, then another. He swiped his hand across his face and pretended he didn’t hear the sharp catch of breath from across the room. “I’m just- just sick of it, I guess. I’m sick of just, I don’t know, dragging myself through every goddamn day just to go to sleep and- dammit, I don’t know, hope I sleep until noon so that I have half a day less of fucking life to live.” 

A teardrop fell onto his shoe, then off the edge, and the ridiculous half-laugh was back. He snorted, tipping his head back against the stone, careful to keep it facing away from Sirius. Water still coursed down Remus’s face, down his neck, and, from the sound of it, down the face of the boy across the room as well. Remus rubbed his eyes with one hand as he continued, voice thick with tears now. “And when I spend too much time with people, I can just- I can feel them get sick of me, and want me gone, and I- I guess I just-” He shrugged, feeling empty. “I guess I just didn’t want to do it anymore, you know? I guess-” He dropped his hands from where they’d been raised in defeat. “I guess I just never thought that anyone would really miss me.”

At those words, Sirius made a strange sound, like a strangled gasp, and Remus made the mistake of looking up.

He regretted it it instantly. Sirius looked like he’d been punched in the gut. Scratch that: Remus had seen Sirius get punched in the gut. This was worse — so, so much worse. His eyes were glossy and wet, his jaw was slack, his lip was near-quivering. Sirius looked like a _kid_. 

He looked younger than he had when he’d stumbled out of the Potters’ fireplace too early on Christmas morning, younger than that first day with the Howler. He looked like a child watching his favorite toy burn in the fire. Remus felt like he shouldn’t be allowed to see this, like Sirius had dropped some final layer of defense that Remus hadn’t even known he had. He felt that same strange urge to run to Sirius and throw his arms around him. He realized his own lips were parted.

Sirius was clearly trying to speak, but it wouldn’t work. He blinked, shook his head, and suddenly when Remus met his gaze again, his eyes were no longer glossy, but sharply focused. He still wasn’t himself, though — far from it — and his gaze was directed at something far away when he spoke.

“Remus-” His voice caught. “Remus, please-” It seemed like Sirius was stuck. He pursed his lips, and Remus realized what he was looking at: Remus’s tearstained sneaker, still halfway off the ledge. The note of fear in his voice set Remus’s blood on edge.

“Please, listen, I-” Sirius finally tore his eyes away from the edge and looked back at Remus. He could see the panic in them, clearer than anything he’d ever been able to read from Sirius.

“Listen, um, you know that James is my friend. My best friend. I love him so much, I love him to pieces, but-”

_This was the grand speech? Nice one_. Remus thought bitterly to himself. _Way to make someone feel like not offing themself_. He wanted to scream, wanted to lean to the right just enough, see what Sirius thought of the wind through his hair as he fell. Instead, he scoffed. Almost without meaning to, Remus shifted his weight away, a miniscule movement closer to the edge.

“Stop- NO!” The sob in his friend’s voice was almost foreign to Remus. It was pure desperation. A plea. No. It was the closest thing to a prayer that he’d ever heard from Sirius’s mouth. Remus whipped his head around just in time to see Sirius _lunge_ towards him, arms outstretched in front of him, mouth open and naked pain swimming in his shocked eyes.

“No, listen, please-” Sirius’s hands were shaking, fluttering around, picking at each other. Remus realized, heart skipping a beat, that he was terrified.

“Yes, I love James to death, but I-” his voice died. “Without you, I-” Sirius squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as he took a breath in. He shoved his hand through his hair. “I-” He gestured in front of him, then brought it back. Remus watched him bite his lip, bring his hands up in a sort of half-shrug, bring them together again. Something was stopping him. Sirius opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again just for no sound to come out. His hands never stopped moving.

It dawned on Remus for the first time that, if he did it, Sirius would live the rest of his life thinking it was his fault. That was the fear in his eyes, the shake of his hands.

His voice came out quieter than he thought it would. “Sirius, what-”

“Shut _up!_ ” As soon as it came out of his mouth, Sirius clapped a hand over his mouth, pure horror shining in his eyes. For the first time that night, Remus felt a hint of a smile on his face. He let out a snort, then a full laugh, nothing like the half-laugh from before. _There he is._

Sirius’s hand dropped, a cautious smile behind it. “Fuck.” He was still fiddling with his hands, but the terror was draining from his face. “Well, I really fucked that one up, didn’t I." He offered up a halfhearted grin, before dropping it. "Shit.”

Remus shook his head, still smiling. “You tried your best.” Sirius’s smile fell at that. Remus couldn’t shake how wrong it felt to see Sirius soft, to see him laid open like this.

Once, when he and Sirius had been hiding from Filch, they’d ducked into an open classroom, empty except for a big mirror in the center of the room. Remus had been curious, had glanced at his reflection with Sirius, and had taken in something curiously off. Mirror-Sirius stood next to Mirror-Remus, just like in real life — but Remus was certain he’d never seen Sirius looking so moon-eyed, so loose, so _free_ in all the years he’d known him. Plus, Mirror-Sirius had an arm slung around Mirror-Remus's waist that he knew wasn't there in real life, and where were the scars across his own neck? It must have been cursed, they’d concluded, and they’d left as soon as Filch’s footsteps disappeared.

Sirius, now, looked more like that Mirror-Sirius than himself. He was himself, but missing something; some wall that he’d been keeping up had finally crumbled. It was strange — _but_ , Remus thought, _it just feels right, somehow._

But something was clearly teetering on the tip of Sirius’s tongue, so Remus shook the thought away and, meeting wide, still-watery eyes, he nodded encouragingly.

Sirius took a deep breath. “Okay. I love James, but I-” He pressed his lips together and looked down for a moment. Remus could see the indecision in every freckle on his face.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” The confession seemed to escape his lips, shocking him slightly, and he half-smiled — an almost-bitter expression on the now-soft curve of his jaw. When he looked up and met Remus’s eyes again, he raised his eyebrows as his shoulders lifted and dropped in a shrug. “There it is, I guess. I don’t. And I mean I hope you knew that already, but you need it now, and it’s true.” Sirius paused, and in that moment, Remus could read his mannerisms like a book. For the first time that night, he thought he might be able to step away from the edge. He looked back at his best friend.

“Um, well, I don’t know what I’d do without you, I don’t know what we’d all do without you, I don’t- you’re funny, and you’re smart, and you’re sweet, and you don’t- um, I don’t know, you don’t-” Sirius seemed to realize he’d been rambling and stopped short, jaw suddenly tight, but Remus could feel the familiar tug in the back of his throat. His chest ached, and his eyes were starting to burn, and his hands were starting to shake from clenching the edge of the wall behind him. He wanted to know what else Sirius had been about to say more than anything.

His foot moved across the ground with a mind of its own, a few centimeters maybe, but the scuffing sound it produced made Sirius jump. As his eyes focused again on Remus’s body, so close to the brink, the blood drained from his face again; he seemed to have forgotten what was happening, the height of the stakes. He took a deep, shuddering breath in.

“Moony, please, I- I-” Remus could see the thoughts racing through his friend’s head, words catching in his panic. He couldn’t tell what Sirius was thinking, emotions flashing across his face before Remus could read them, one after another spiraling into panic until-

Suddenly, something broke. Sirius threw his hands up, and Remus finally landed on desperation as it flashed across Sirius’s face.

“I love you."

_So that was what he'd been so scared to say_ , Remus realized. As a rule, Sirius Black didn't fall in love. 

But here they were now — one about to jump, the other falling — and Remus felt higher than the stars above them. 

"I love you, and I’m not the only one who does, we all do, so much, but I- I’m sorry, this is so selfish, but I- fuck, I-” Sirius’s hands were moving, passing from gesture to gesture faster and faster until suddenly, they dropped. “It’s stupid, but I love that you don’t- you don’t yell at me when I wake you up in the morning.”

A tear trickled down Remus’s face. Another followed close behind.

“I love that you help me with transfiguration, and- and that you help the first years get to class even when it means you’ll be late, and- and that you stay with me no matter what-” His voice broke. “Fuck!” Sirius scrubbed his hand across his cheek, then threw it through his hair again. “And I just can’t believe I didn’t- I didn’t notice, you know? Like- I sat next to you, and you sat next to me, every day, and we turned into fucking- fucking animals together, and spent six damn years together, and I didn’t see any of it. Moony-” Sirius looked him in the eyes, black meeting hazel, water meeting water, and Remus felt his heartbeat pound in his throat. “I- I love you. Yeah, I love you. I need you. I’m so sorry.”

The words slammed into him like a ton of bricks. _Sirius loved him. Needed him. He’s here- he’s here for good._ Suddenly, it was that simple. 

After everything, those were the thought that shook the voice in his head. The words that broke the dam.

A sob broke through Remus’s closed lips, then another, chest heaving with them. A flow of tears blurred the cobblestone tower into a mass of grey and black — but he could still see the boy across from him, clear as day. 

And when Sirius opened his arms, Remus finally let himself let go of his death grip on the wall, step away from the ledge, and throw himself into Sirius’s warmth. Remus smelled wood smoke, and jasmine shampoo, and the cedarwood cologne that Sirius had bought on their first trip to Hogsmeade. A thousand memories flashed through Remus’s head, days of laughter, of bad jokes, of pranks gone wrong. He nestled his chin into Sirius’s shoulder, tears soaking the dark cotton of his t-shirt. It felt familiar- it felt safe. Sirius felt like home.

Remus couldn’t stop himself from jumping for himself, not tonight. He was too tired, and his thoughts were too loud. No, he couldn’t do it for himself — but he might be able to for the boy standing next to him. Sirius couldn’t lose someone else. _He couldn't take away one of the few people Sirius had left._

As he came back to himself, he realized that Sirius was talking again.

“Hey- we love you, you know that. I love you, and James loves you, and Lily and Mary and Marlene love you, and even- even Peter loves you when he’s around, and all the first years look up to you, and even the teachers, they- I know they- wait, Moony.”

Sirius pulled him away for a second. For a moment, Remus felt a hot flash of panic in his chest. But as he looked into Sirius’s eyes, still soft, gazing at him from not thirty centimeters away, calm flooded through his body. Sirius’s stare was purposeful, determined, but his smile betrayed his relief that Remus was really here, in his arms.

“Listen to me, okay? Please _never_ tell me that no one would miss you again- hey.” His tone was still strong, still urgent, but each word was soaked to the bone in pure love. Remus looked up from where his gaze had fallen, embarrassed. The tear tracks glistened across Sirius’s face in the moonlight. He looked like an angel.

“If you feel lonely, let me know. I won’t tell them about anything, but if you feel like no one wants you around, come sit with me. You’re- listen. You’re never too much. I get that it’s hard, and I get that you tell yourself something else sometimes. But don’t tell me that no one would miss you, because you know _goddamn_ well that isn’t true.”

Sirius pulled him back in. Remus’s chest swelled with- well, he couldn’t really tell. Care, tenderness, vulnerability, love. _Love._ He felt as though he would explode with the sheer volume of it. It was in his fingers, toes, lips, surely even the tips of his hair were standing on end.

There was so much left to say. So much that Sirius didn’t know, that he didn’t know about Sirius. But that was for another day, another time.

For now, he’d rest his cheek on Sirius’s shoulder, close his eyes, and finally feel at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to yell at me on tumblr @percabetter xoxo love u all


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